Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 636 Battle of Whitling Avenue

It's the same as the kind of monopoly in Liang En's mind.Compared with the pass that Wanfumo opened, this pass is obviously much wider, but from the perspective of real warfare, it is just enough for the Roman legion to deploy here.

According to historical records, in AD 60, the Iceni people in Britain, who could not bear the cruel exploitation of the Romans, started a massive war under the leadership of Boudica.

Boudica's timing was very good, when the British governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus happened to be fighting in the west of Britain.

Therefore, her rebel army basically did not encounter any decent resistance from the east, and easily captured and slaughtered important Roman colonies such as Camulodunum, Londinium (London), and Verulamium.

Of course, this large-scale massacre also prompted the Celts in the south who were assimilated by the Romans to choose to stand with the Romans, but at that time, the rebel army severely damaged the Ninth Army who was trying to reinforce them through an ambush, so naturally they did not care about this. little things.

At one point Paulinus tried to lead the cavalry of the legion south to rescue London, the largest Roman colony on the British Isle, but he soon realized that the number of enemies was far greater than they had previously imagined.

In this case, if he could not mobilize the volunteers of an entire or even several legions, he would never be able to stop Boudica's rebels, so he gave up his plan to rescue the colony.

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So when those cities were slaughtered, Paulinus chose to fortify the walls and clear the fields, destroying all the towns on the road of the rebel army, and at the same time summoning the nearby Roman legions as much as possible.It's just that the final result was far worse than he imagined:
The Second Army stationed in southern Britain was not ordered for unknown reasons, and the Ninth Army was severely damaged and lost its combat effectiveness. Only the No.14 Army and part of the No.20 Army could gather around Paulinus.

In addition to the regular army, he was also able to recruit 6 brigades of auxiliary infantry and 2 brigades of auxiliary cavalry, but even so the Roman army had a total of 1 people.

Fortunately, because of the indiscriminate killings by Boudicca's army before, those Celts who had defected to the Roman Empire chose to stand firmly with the Romans, ensuring the morale of the auxiliary army and the implementation of the policy of strengthening the wall and clearing the country.

As for the other side of the war, many Roman historians have vigorously promoted the numerical superiority of the British in this battle.Tacitus stated that the number of Britons in this battle was about 23.Another Roman historian, Cassius Dio, claimed [-].

Of course, this number is mixed with unknown amount of water. After all, with the productivity on the British island at that time, these rebels could not reach this number even if they included their families.

According to the inferences of today's scholars, the maximum number of rebels is only 5. Considering the extremely collapsed logistics of the rebels at that time and the Romans' strong wall clearing tactics, this number is likely to be overestimated.

Especially before the start of the war, the Romans did not collect enough food because of their strong walls and clearing the fields. In addition, the war affected the farming season and forced Queen Boudica to dismiss many of her troops to avoid starvation before the start of the war.

However, Paulinus chose the location of the decisive battle very carefully. He used vegetation as the cover of his two wings so that the enemy could not take advantage of the numerical advantage to encircle and encircle.He deployed his legionaries in close formation in the center, with auxiliary troops on the wings.

As a result, on the battlefield, Boudica did something that almost never ended well in the military records of various countries: he formed a circle of carts behind his own army, posing as if he would end his life and fight to the death.

You must know that every time the tactic of the last stand is used, it must be supported by a series of backhands. From the perspective of Chinese history, only two true tacticians, Han Xin and Liu Yu, have succeeded. .

Many people only saw the determination of the troops to fight to the end in the last stand, but in fact, the reason why China won the two wars was that it drew out while resisting the enemy's attack head-on, and then crushed the enemy from both sides.

And if you just fight back to death, you are just looking for death, and the soldiers will even collapse faster than normal face-to-face combat because they can't see hope. .

Of course, the British Celtic equipment tactics are not good on the battlefield. The British Celts had chariots and very good swords back then, but because of a series of reasons such as productivity, they didn't have much armor at all.

Although those warriors with bare upper body and smeared with blue patterns on their bodies became invincible after using some potions, and won such cool names as Berserker or even Indigo Raider, they couldn't cover up their disadvantages on the battlefield.

The more important problem is that these unorganized tribal fighters are invincible when they charge, especially when ambushing, but once the first charge fails to defeat the opponent, it is difficult for them to block the enemy's attack .

To put it simply, the battles that the Celts are good at are either fighting guerrillas with their flexible advantages on complex terrain, or playing a wave on the plains. As a result, the Romans successfully restricted Kyle in this war. Special people these two advantages.

So in this war, although the British had a huge numerical advantage, the Romans occupied a favorable terrain, and with better quality, the British charge failed.

When the Britons couldn't hold back their full retreat, the carts deployed by Boudicca before became the biggest obstacle for the Britons to escape, turning a failed battle into a unilateral massacre.

It is said that 8 Britons were killed, while Paulinus suffered only 800 casualties.Also because of the victory in this battle, the No.14 Legion received the title of Martia Victrix.It is well deserved to say that they were the conquerors of Britain.

Of course, this record is considered to be very watery: on the one hand, Rome has the possibility of publicizing its achievements. In addition, Tacitus' father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola was in the British uprising. Serving in the army, he was probably on the battlefield at the time.

On the one hand, there should be no doubt about the credibility of Tacitus' records of the battle, but it also makes people suspect that such data may include his admiration of the Roman Legion and his father-in-law's record in this battle.

But in any case, the ratio of casualties between the Romans and the local natives in this war was far from that of the ancient Romans. The ancient Romans did win an undoubted victory.

Liang En and Pierce's search on this hillside also proved this point. They excavated a total of seven or eight probes before dark, and found a large number of remains from the ancient Celts.

Most of these remains are decorations and fragments of some weapons. Judging from the traces left on them, they should be things left on the battlefield during the war.

Of course, the most important remnant is that they are not far from this slope.Broken human bones, even Liang En and Pierce are amateurs can see the trauma on these bones and simply judge that these people should have died in battle.

"This is indeed an ancient battlefield, and it is an ancient battlefield where the Romans won after the battle between the Romans and the Celts." Liang En concluded after an afternoon of searching. "We're ready to call everyone over for a massive survey."

(End of this chapter)